Ellen Shumsky

“We took seats all around the conference, and when the lights went back on—like Superman, we removed our blouses and stood up wearing our Lavender Menace t-shirts. We started saying that we were taking over the meeting and the women’s movement had to address the issue of lesbianism.”

Ellen Shumsky was a founding member of Radicalesbians and a collaborating author of the 1970 Lesbian Feminist cri de coeur “The Woman Identified Woman.” A photographer at that time, she extensively documented the feminist, lesbian and gay liberation movements. A collection of her photographs, Portrait of a Decade: 1968 - 1978, Photographs by Ellen Shumsky, Edited by Flavia Rando Ph.D, was published in 2009 by Graeae Press. For many decades now she has been a psychotherapist in private practice, as well as a psychoanalytic teacher, supervisor and writer. She has presented her work nationally and internationally.